How to Stay Motivated to Eat Healthy and Exercise

Do you want to eat healthy and exercise but find it hard to stay motivated? Staying motivated to eat healthy and continue your exercise routine is one of the hardest things you can do. Being motivated at the start is easy, sticking with your desires to eat healthy and exercise is the hard part. This article will show you the pitfalls that can cause the loss of motivation and how to get through them.

How to Get Motivated to Eat Healthy and Exercise

Getting motivated is not the problem. Staying motivated to eat healthy and to exercise each day is the hard part. For those who find it hard to exercise each day, realize you are not alone. 

 

Many people know they feel better and healthier when they exercise, but they can also dread some days knowing they have to workout or run that day. Coming up with a fitness program is easy, sticking to a fitness program can be tough at times.

Becoming motivated to eat healthy and exercise can start with reading a health book, worries about being overweight or just fed up with feeling bad every day. Too many times that motivation to eat healthy and exercise doesn’t last very long but there are ways you can keep the motivation.

How to Get Motivated to Exercise

The first step to starting any exercise program is to make sure with your doctor which exercises you can do, then know what you want to accomplish and stick to that. Being healthy is a combination of eating healthy and exercising.

But you have to start. Walking is good to start. Riding an exercise bike is fine. Doing some pushups and stomach crunches and other core strengthening exercises are wonderful. And then make a weekly exercise routine that you like and will stick to. The problem is staying motivated so you can continue eating healthy and exercising.

You do not have to join a gym and pay for a membership. You can easily find affordable exercise equipment for your home and get into shape without the hassle of going to a gym. You'd be amazed at how a good set of dumbbells can give you a great workout and get you in shape.

The Pitfalls of Staying Motivated to Exercise 

Pitfalls to staying motivated to exercise can cause you to just throw up your arms and say the heck with exercising. And the pitfalls that hurt motivation can come right out of the blue. Here are the pitfalls and how you can defeat them

• Becoming too busy at work or life. Stop this pitfall before it even starts. Have a workout schedule that you will stick to. It doesn’t take long for exercising to become a habit you will want to stick with. If you miss a day, realize, this is not the end of your exercising to a healthier lifestyle. Tomorrow you will exercise.
• Thinking you should lose 8 pounds each week or look perfect after a week. Do not think losing weight and to look better is a quick process. It is not. It takes time and patience.
• Don’t look at the scale each day and expect a change. You can actually gain weight for numerous reasons including water weight and as you gain muscle you can gain weight since muscle weighs more than fat. Even a change in the weather can cause you to gain weight.
• Inches are more important than weight. Take measurements of your hip to waist ratio and watch these weekly to gauge your progress.
• Beware of the dreaded plateau. You will come to a time when it seems you’re not losing weight and your belly measurements are not changing. Plateaus are one of the most common pitfalls that can cause a person to stop exercising. Understand this is normal and happens to everyone.
• You might think you are not exercising hard enough. Always keep in mind that walking a mile a day is much better than not walking at all. Five pushups or stomach crunches are better than doing none.
• Injury or getting sick. This will stop your exercise routine for a while and there is nothing wrong with that. But it can be hard to get back into the exercise routine again. It could feel like starting over again, do not let this discourage or stop you. Everyone goes through this.

 
Looking at the above list could discourage many of us from even starting. But these pitfalls that can cause us to lose motivation to exercise, happens with all of us and those who want to accomplish their goals get through the pitfalls.

Staying Motivated to Eat Healthy 

Sticking to a fitness program and staying motivated to exercise is hard enough but when you add in staying motivated to eat healthy, can be even harder, but they both go together.

One of the best ways to stay motivated to eat healthy is to learn about healthy foods and then cook your own meals. Once you learn about healthy foods and healthy cooking, you will be motivated to buy and eat healthy foods. 

 

This means reading books and really learning about healthy foods and nutrients. The better you feel, the more motivated you will become to stick with a fitness program of daily exercise and healthy eating.
 

The following is a list of pitfalls that can derail your healthy eating habits and how you can overcome them.

• After weeks of eating healthy and exercises, you will lose many of the cravings you used to have for unhealthy, greasy and oily foods. If you do give in and give yourself a so-called treat and have a food that is unhealthy junk food, you might find yourself feeling sick to your stomach. You can then realize just how much you like healthy foods and how easy it now is to say no to unhealthy foods.
• Do not let the ads on television drive you crazy. There are constant ads on television about fast and processed foods. The more you learn about healthy eating, the more you will start to laugh at these ads.
• Work can be a pitfall with eating healthy. Everyone seems to order pizzas for everyone or donuts in the morning and this can be very hard to avoid. You don’t want to feel odd by not having a piece, but you also know you shouldn’t. One piece of pizza once in a great while is not the end of your healthy eating or exercise routine. Just remember you cannot do this every day or week. Make your own lunch and take it to work every day will overcome this pitfall.
• Temptation is always hard to avoid, the smell of fast food restaurants are around us every day. The more you eat healthy foods, the more you will realize those fast foods will give you a stomach ache if you eat them.
• Make your body crave fresh and healthy foods. You can do this the more you learn about healthy foods and cook your own meals.

You Can Stay Motivated to Eat Healthy and Exercise

Once you realize there are many pitfalls and that everyone has to learn and practice to get through them, you can do it. You are not alone in these cravings and pitfalls. Make healthy eating a hobby, just like exercising. Learn and read as much as you can about healthy foods, healthy ways of eating and exercising.

When you stick to an overall fitness program of healthy eating and exercise, your motivation will become stronger each day. As you continue to lose weight, lose fat, lose inches and watch as your body transforms from what it was to become what you have always wanted, you will find yourself looking forward to each healthy meal and that day's exercise.

About the Author


Sam Montana is a certified Food Over Medicine instructor from the Wellness Forum Health Center and certified in optimal nutrition from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Copyright © Sam Montana 2012-2019